"This is having a devastating impact on young people suffering from eating disorders who feel increasingly alienated and isolated and lack confidence to ask people for advice and support."

Diane Whiteoak, of the Huntercombe Hospital in Edinburgh, which treats eating disorders, said: "Pressure on young people in particular to achieve a supposed 'perfect figure' is a contributing factor as they see images of ultra-thin models and celebrities as 'normal' and an ideal to aspire to.

"Removing a pressure or desire to achieve thinness as a way of seeking perfection and control will help to combat the rising numbers of our children being affected by this most serious and life-threatening condition."

The warning comes as pressure continues to mount on the fashion industry to ban size zero models from the catwalk.

Professor Janet Treasure, Britain's leading authority on eating disorders, called on fashion designers and retailers to be prosecuted under health and safety laws if they insist on using super-skinny models to promote their wares.

While size zero models - a UK size four - have effectively been banned from Italian fashion shows, they are free to take to the catwalk during London Fashion Week, which starts on Sunday.

Prof Treasure, director of the Eating Disorder Unit at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, described the British Fashion Council's refusal to ban stick-thin models as "deeply disappointing".

She added: "Is it surprising that young women are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the clothes the models are trying to sell and the waif-like looks of the models themselves?"

More than a million Britons suffer from eating disorders, with those aged between 14 and 25 at greatest risk of anorexia, bulimia and other conditions, which in the most severe cases, can be fatal.

But children even younger - down to age seven - are also showing signs of suffering from eating disorders.

A beat survey of 600 young people with eating disorders revealed that most feel there is no one they can turn to.

Only one per cent can talk to their parents and just nine per cent can talk to someone at school about their problem.

Even those who do pluck up the courage to visit their GP often do not get the help they need, with many family doctors failing to diagnose the disorder.

One young sufferer told researchers that their doctor said they were just going through "a phase".

Dr Goldin, of Great Ormond Street Hospital, has previously warned that girls are becoming self-conscious about their bodies at increasingly younger ages.

The consultant psychiatrist, said: "A relatively small number of children as young as seven or eight years old develop eating disorders.

"Eating disorders in children also have a significant impact on the child and their family's quality of life.

"In a minority of the most severe cases eating disorders can be fatal."